A blog all about the 3kWp PV Solar panels installed in Nov 2011 in Kent UK by Solar Advanced Systems. Follow the ongoing performance and how much solar power we generate over the next few months as well as the problems and solutions we encounter along the way such as solar panels electric meter going backwards.
We are registered with British Gas for our FIT payments and our roof is SSW facing. We have 14 x Sungrid 215W solar panels and Sunny Boy 3000HF inverter.

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Tuesday, 30 October 2012

How Much Electricity Do Solar Panels Produce Each Year in UK?

Before we got our solar panels I'd never really considered how much electricity solar panels would produce and certainly not to the level of detail of how the electrity generated would vary by day and by month. I'd not considered that the amount of electricity produced by the solar PV panels would increase from morning to midday and then drop towards dusk. This is typically referred to as a bell curve for the electricity produced.

The electricity produced by solar panels will vary depending on the following factors:

Amount of sunshine or cloud during the day
Daylight hours (depending on Month of year)
Temperature
Time of day (elevation of sun)
Shading
Direction

The mix of these factors will determine the amount of solar panel electricity generated at any point in the day and also the total for the month.

Our 3kWp solar panels (14x 235W) will have generated over 3000kWh of electricity over a full year but this ranges from 100kWh for a month in the winter to 400kWh for a month in the summer. The electricity generated during the day peaks when the sun is overhead and drops back towards the end of the day before falling to zero after dark.
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How Much Electricity Do Solar Panels Produce Each Year in UK?

The electricity produced by solar panels in the UK in optimum conditions in the south of the UK is likely to be around 1000kWh per kWp of the panels. So an installation of 2kWp of solar panels would produced around 2000kWh of electricity in an ideal location. This would be lower if the panels were not facing south or were shaded and would decrease the further north they were located.

Even if solar energy is still a somewhat "young" type of technology, the sun is still a very good source of renewable energy. Solar panels are becoming easily affordable everyday as more and more homes use them as primary sources of energy. Get one and try it out for yourself. Know more about solar panels or get a free quotation here.